Category: u artists

Excellent Christchurch guitar band that evolved from earlier group The Centre Will Hold. From that group Jamey Holloway (Guitar / vocals), and Nathan Bycroft (Drums) were joined by Nik O’Keefe (Bass, Vocals) and Marcus Winstanley (Guitar) to form the original line-up in mid 2003. This original line-up played in a low-key manner, with just Winstanley’s guitar adding an extra layer of Shoegaze type guitar into the mix (as he had done with previous band Barnard’s Star).

Eventually Bycroft left and after a short stint by Stephen McCarthy (Pine) the ever-versatile Simon Nunn (also of the Steffan Van Soest Hit Machine, Hi-Tone Destroyers etc) filled the drummers seat more permanently, and beefed up their sound quite a lot. Michael Summerfield (Palace of Wisdom, Cowboy Machine) joined on viola, adding a level of country/folk inflection to their sound. The group managed to win the 2004 RDU Round Up band competition, released an EP with the help of Michael Brassell (aka Michael J Hex) / Arc Life Records and set up All Plastics – a small recording studio.

Simon Nunn eventually found himself committed to his regular gigs as a professional musician, so young drummer Matt Scobie (Black Market Art, T54) was brought in to replace him, and long-time bassist Nick O’Keefe also left, replaced by Vaughan Watson (Pumpkinhead, Squirm). The group has continued a low-key existence, with only a handful of shows a year and recordings few and far between.

Hard core punk outfit, pretty serious about their music. The band feature Jeff Paris (Drums), Harry Hepworth (Vocals), Mark ‘Gibby’ Gibson (Bass), and Phil Johnston (Guitar). The band released half an album, the other side of Desperate Measures – ‘Wasted Again’ release, featured fast and dense punk tunes. Hepworth And Paris went on to Evasive Action and later Hepworth, Gibson, and Johnston went on to Southern Front, with Vandenhoven from Desperate Measures.

An off-shoot of Sandoz Lab Technicians members Tim Cornelius and Nathan Thompson. Recordings are based around the duo along with various guest members (Susan Ballard, Donald Mcpherson etc), with releases coming out through Sandoz’s own Blunt Instrumentals label.

Formed out of the ashes of defunct noise-trio Meat Market, Universal Joint is the multi-instrumentalist duo of Sarah Bingle and Elise Bishop. A Palmerston North based duo with firm community development ideals (establishing the nOise Workshop music-making workshops in the late 1990s) that have released a couple short-run lathe releases (so far) the 2nd on the now-Melbourne based Headshy label (run by Teledu Records Paul Hirst).